Posted by: Matt Lewis at 11:52 AM

Yesterday, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani praised
<http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/04/rudy_decision_w
.html> the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on partial-birth
abortion. As many pointed out, this was a reversal
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZx5i3Ntv0> of his previous position.

Many have probably forgotten that in 1996, then-Mayor Giuliani got into
a public dispute over the issue with Pope John Paul II.

Here's the story: After President Clinton vetoed a ban on partial-birth
abortions, Pope John Paul II condemned Clinton's veto as "a shameful
veto that in practice is equivalent to an incredibly brutal act of
aggression against innocent humans."

As the New York Times reported on April 22, 1996,
<http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20917FA345D0C7
18EDDAD0894DE494D81> Giuliani defended Clinton -- and criticized Pope
John Paul II, and Cardinal O'Connor:

"Critics of the Pope's statements, including Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani,
questioned last week whether the church should issue opinions on
political matters.

"It is a not-so-clever way of trying to muzzle the church," the Cardinal
said of the criticisms. "If the church here in New York, the church in
Rome or anywhere else were to refrain to address such crucial issues of
public policy simply because an election campaign is being waged, then
the church would never" be able to address these issues.

"The church will not be silenced simply because of an election," he
added.

The Cardinal's remarks came a week after he equated late-term abortions
with outright infanticide, and a week and a half after President
Clinton's veto. Although Cardinal O'Connor used St. Patrick's pulpit
yesterday to broadly defend the church's right to voice opinions on
policy matters with moral dimensions, he also seemed to be responding
specifically to comments made by Mayor Giuliani on Friday.

Asked about the Pope's criticisms, Mayor Giuliani, who is Catholic,
said: "Such direct involvement in politics is not a good idea, because I
think it confuses people. I think that religious institutions, including
the Catholic Church, have every right to do everything they can to
persuade their members and others as to their moral views. That can be
done without focusing on a particular political figure, in this case the
President of the United States."

... But Governor Pataki, who also is Catholic, defined the church's role
as open-ended: "I think the church has every right to speak out on
issues that they consider to be of importance. And they have every right
to speak out and criticize political decisions and politicians who make
those decisions."

Among Catholic voters, I can only imagine that criticizing Pope John
Paul II is about as popular as criticizing Ronald Reagan. Rudy will
have a long way to go to convince voters that his statement yesterday
was sincere.

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